What is Clinical Depression?
We often hear the term ‘depression’ being used casually in conversations to describe sorrow or a momentary mood-swing.
However, the reality is much graver for a person struggling with clinical depression. Even day-to-day sustenance can become a major challenge for such individuals, requiring immediate care, empathy, and professional intervention.
Britannica defines depression in psychological terms as “a mood or emotional state that is marked by feelings of low self-worth or guilt and a reduced ability to enjoy life.”
Typically, such spells of an emotional breakdown last for an extended period, preventing the person from enjoying generally pleasurable everyday activities.
An individual’s tryst with depression can be a dark and lonely phase, but timely support and adequate therapy for depression can usher one towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
Symptoms of Clinical Depression
Every individual’s battle with depression may be different from the others. However, some of the common symptoms of depression are as follows:
- Deliberately avoiding social interactions and conversations
- Spending extended periods at home or locked up in one’s room
- Constant pessimistic thoughts and statements about one’s life
- Severe loss of appetite or binge eating
- Insomnia or oversleeping
- Suicidal thoughts or attempts
- Constant feelings of helplessness and emptiness for no apparent reason
- Decreased or no sexual arousal
- Susceptibility to alcohol or drug addiction as a means of momentary solace
The Way Ahead With Safe House
The first step to depression treatment is the reassurance that one is not alone in his/her struggle. Safe House provides that secure and accepting atmosphere for patients with depression feel comforted and motivated to find hope. Here are some state-of-the-art services we provide at Safe House when offering therapies for depression:
- Use of Specific Therapy Approaches in Individual Sessions: Our team of psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors is highly qualified and experienced in the field of mental health. Their emotional intelligence, empathy, and unconditional positive regard allow individuals facing depression to express themselves better. We incorporate specific therapies including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), art therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT, a variant of CBT that helps individuals having severe depressive thoughts), etc.
- Comprehensive Group Therapy Sessions: We also conduct interactive group therapy sessions, incorporating various therapeutic techniques like psychodrama, group discussions, role plays, etc. Such activities help patients open up and feel reassured that they are not alone in their struggles, thus ensuring their social wellbeing.
- Peace Within, Serenity Without Against the backdrop of the serene I.T. Fields in Chattarpur, Safe House offers its patients alternative healing practices like yoga, meditation, and self-reflection as part of their everyday routines. Such techniques help patients undergoing depression treatment become aware of their thoughts, feel calmer and more relaxed, and motivated to work on themselves.
- Food and Nutritional Counselling: Safe House offers patients a plethora of cuisines prepared hygienically, considering every individual’s physical and mental state. Our psychologists and counsellors prepare specific meal plans as part of the therapy plan for depression. The plan for each patient, incorporates any dietary restrictions, deficiencies, religious restrictions, etc.
- Medical Interventions if Required: There are many medical causes of depression, such as too high or too low cortisol levels, decreased dopamine levels, serotonin, and other neurotransmitters, etc. Thus, severe cases of depression would require medical treatment alongside psychological interventions. Our psychiatrists and clinicians understand the various medications to be administered to patients and help them handle any side-effects.
- Family and Couple Therapy: Family support is extremely crucial in the depression treatment process of an individual grappling with the condition. We provide extensive family and couple therapy so that the patient receives emotional and mental support from his/her loved ones during and post the treatment.
According to the World Health Organization (as reported by the Indian Express), 36% of Indians are likely to undergo depression at some point in their lives. If you are going through a bout of depression, you are not alone in your struggle. Reach out to us now, and let us hear you out and plan your treatment course.